When I grow up, I want to be famous

By BabaJimmi

Every child has an idea of what they want to be in life. Traditionally, boys yearn to be artists, detectives, politicians and musicians. An adventurous few want to join sports and the media, with a small number opting for self-employment, crime, and general hustling. Girls aspire to be models, hairdressers, nurses, oncologists, dancers and international prosecutors.

Parents also take different approaches to the subject.

“Watoto wanafaa kujichagulia chenye wanataka,” Mama Jimmy says, adding that our children are entitled to their ambitions.

Sadly, most unguided dreams eventually go up in smoke, or lead to the wrong careers, which might explain the rising number of people who have been caught talking to themselves.

Take my heirs, for instance. Some of their ambitions are realistic, but the vast majority are mere dreams, meaning you have to be asleep to believe them. Thanks to today’s celebrity culture, and with TV shaping career choices, traditional professions do not curry these youngsters’ flavour. They would rather become rappers than teachers, lawyers or doctors.

None of my children wants to become a veterinarian, which is okay, as city children would make terrible veterinarians anyway. Law does not register with them, and neither do archaeology, teaching or farming.

At the tender age of five, Little Tiffany has already decided that she wants to become an airhostess. Her dream is to fly in an airplane, travel the globe and make more money than sense.

BETTER IDEA

“Nataka kuwa airhostess,” she keeps saying, leaving my heart aglow.

When he was younger, Russell’s ambition was to be a ‘superhero’, but he trashed this wish after realising that such careers do not exist in the real world. He would later opt for firefighting.

Later on, he dumped the dream and opted to be a doctor and “save people’s lives”. But after several trips to the dentist, being pilot was deemed a better idea, which gave way to being engineer, followed by a paparazzo, newscaster and celeb. His dreams keep mutating and somersaulting. Then, on Friday evening, he pompously announced that he wants to become an ambassador.

“Mimi nataka kuwa balozi,” he announced, and this made me laugh.

“Kazi zingine inafaa usahau tu,” I advised. I hate to sound sceptical, but I am yet to see ambassadors who went to city council schools, so I asked Russell to scout for a more realistic fantasy.

In my opinion, children should align their talents with their career ambitions. For instance, my mboys love eating, and they have become our household’s ‘Joint Chiefs of Ugali’. Given their positive attitude towards food and ugali-eating talents, they could make world-class professionals in the food industry.

“You boys could make excellent restaurateurs,” I quipped.

At this, Russell sat back while absentmindedly biting his fingernails. The expression on his face seemed to scream, “That is no dream.”

Jimmy spoke next: “Mimi nataka kuwa soldier,” he declared.

Following our army’s conquests in Somalia, he has developed an obsession with the military and a crush on their uniforms.

“A soldier?” I gasped. “But you are scared of mice, and you can hardly run beyond the gate!”

If the likes of Jimmy join the army, then our country is doomed. The army provides a wide range of thrilling careers, but not in the Schwarzenegger kind of way. Army life is serious business, and being a soldier subjects one to a rule system harsher than you would find in those schools run by a certain church. Right from the day of your recruitment, the army makes it clear that you are subject to a strict disciplinary regimen, and the commander is not your daddy.

 “Kijana, jeshi sio mchezo,” I warned, but he stuck to his guns.

“Lazima nitakuwa soldier”, he maintained, while wearing his recently acquired sura ya kazi look.

He then uncorked a torrent of the most vainglorious ambitions I had ever heard, saying he wants to become a general. Having listened to ‘General’ Jimmy’s dreams, I slumped back on the couch while stroking the porcupine on my chin.

At this rate, our army will become a dumping site for all the flatfooted, lethargic and physically unfit cowards of our counties.

I certainly wouldn’t mind being known as Baba ya General Jimmy, but let’s be realistic here: This boy is simply not army material. But if soldiering rocks his boat, then I have no choice but to let him be.